SOUTH SHORE ENTREPRENEUR: Milton duo produce a cold version of an ancient Asian green tea

Using startup funding from their family and friends and working out of their shared home-office in Milton, Henry Crosby and Tom Olcott started selling the drink Motto last June. Since then, Motto has spread to more than 100 locations throughout the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, from Baltimore to Portland.

When Henry Crosby and Tom Olcott were planning to produce their drink, Motto, they faced a steep learning curve.

“First, you’ve got to settle on a formula,” Olcott said. “Then you have to figure out the packaging, the design, where will you source ingredients from.”

“We’re wearing a lot of hats,” Crosby added.

Crosby and Olcott were first introduced by a mutual friend while living in Charlottesville, Va., and started brewing experimental batches of the beverage in late 2010.

Having studied law and architecture, respectively, in college, the duo didn’t know much about the beverage industry.

What they did know was that Motto was a potential hit.

Using startup funding from their family and friends and working out of their shared home-office in Milton, they started selling Motto in just four locations last June.

Since then, Motto has spread to more than 100 locations throughout the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, from Baltimore to Portland.

In Massachusetts, it can be found at The Fruit Center in Hingham, Good Health in Hanover and several locations on Nantucket.

It typically costs $3 to $4 per bottle, and is produced in Pennsylvania.

The key ingredient in Motto is matcha, the powder of finely ground, shade-grown green tea leaves.

Matcha was originally consumed in China during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), but later found broader popularity in Japan, where it has been used for more than 800 years.

Matcha is traditionally whisked in a bowl of water and served piping hot. But Crosby and Olcott had an idea: Why not mix it with cold water instead, to make matcha a refreshing drink for a hot summer day?

All that was left was to make the drink more flavorful by adding honey, lemon and apple cider vinegar.

“By itself, matcha tastes kind of like grass. The idea in making this drink was to pass along the health benefit, but a close second was to make it more enjoyable and tasty,” Olcott said.

Each bottle of Motto contains 1.25 grams of matcha. Olcott and Crosby say matcha provides health benefits, particularly from the plant’s high antioxidant and nutrient levels.

Within the scientific community, however, there isn’t a clear consensus about the health benefits of green tea.

Proponents say it can help lower blood pressure and even reduce the risk of cancer, but so far there is little scientific evidence to support the claim.

“It’s hard to know about matcha. This is the only product we know of right now which has matcha at its center,” Crosby said.

Olcott said getting people to consciously take the healthier route is one of the duo’s biggest challenges.

“It’s tough to introduce a brand-new, healthy product into an industry that is laden with alternatives that people have been drinking for generations,” Olcott said.